The Comparison of the Marriage in Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion

By Dong Xian

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May 2016

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the continuous guidance of my advisor Mrs. Pan Min who helped me set right process for the research and gave me constructive suggestions during this research. I also want to thank my best friends Min Min,Ji Lin,Cao ZhengYu and Liu Jing for the consecutive support they provided for me, their feedback about this paper helped me a lot in improving the paper quality in the process of paper writing. They are the reason I finished this research as scheduled.

Contents

1.Literature review 1

2.Two Female Protagonists’ Attitudes Toward Marriage 2

3. Holding the ceremony 4

4. Two Male Protagonists’ Attitudes Toward Marriage 7

5.The reaction of both parents to their daughter’s marriage. 9

6. conclusion 11

References： 13

The Comparison of the Marriage in Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion

Dong Xian

Department of English

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: As one of the greatest authors in western literature history, Shakespeare is the topic that people would never stop talking about. However, Tang XianZu, the person who wrote one of the most touching Kunqu operas in traditional Chinese opera history, The Peony Pavilion, has not been well-known till now as Shakespeare by the whole world. Since the love between young people has always been the most common but most attractive feeling for human race , and marriage is the most regular ritual which is related to this feeling in every corner around the world, marriage has become the most common character of the whole human race from the day human being appeared. By illustrating the different characters in the two works, we will find what exactly differences the two kind of marriages have in the two works. It would help us understand the works of Shakespeare’s and Tang XianZu’s better.

Key words: marriage, Shakespeare, Tang XianZu, Romeo and Juliet, The Peony Pavilion

摘要：作为西方文学史上的文学巨匠，莎士比亚风靡全球，时至今日仍然是人们津津乐道的话题。而同样在戏剧方面具有极高艺术成就，并有“东方的莎士比亚”之称的汤显祖，却极少在现代被人提及。另一方面，婚姻一事民族或时代，是与生老病死一样的人类生活中不可或缺的一部分，如果将不同文化孕育出来的中的婚姻元素加以比较，更能显不同文化对相同事物不同的观念与差异。本文旨在通过《罗密欧与朱丽叶》和《牡丹亭》中的婚姻比较，找出两部书在近现代命运如此不同的原因。并希望此文的分析，能对后来的研究者有所助益。

关键词：婚姻，莎士比亚，汤显祖，《罗密欧与朱丽叶,《牡丹亭》

1. Literature Review

Tang XianZu and Shakespeare, both of them are entitled to the fame of the greatest playwrights of their times. Like the famous critic Samuel Johnson once said: “Thus, Shakespeare deserves such compliments, his works are the mirrors of life, whoever dazzled by those ridiculous stories written by those ridiculous authors would be cured as soon as he read the language written by Shakespeare and felt the spirits conveyed by his language. To obtain that effect, all one need to do is just to read the scenes written by him. Because even if one pictures only one scene in his mind, an hermit would be able to judge temporal things and a missionary would know how a love affair would go on”( 贺奉年,2007:107). Meanwhile, Tang XianZu was praised as “Shakespeare in the east”.

Shakespeare’s works were just like big mirrors which reflect all aspects of the society. In all 37 works he had written, there were over 130 female characters. some of them were the embodiments of beauty, like Miranda in The Tempest, Hermia and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Nerissa and Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Others were the targets of teasing and had been described as evil creatures that deserved bad treat. Like Gertrude in Hamlet, Catherine in The Taming of the Shrew, Bianca in Othello, still others had the woeful and piteous visage in Shakespeare’s descriptions, Like Hermione in The Winter's Tale (贺奉年,2007: 108).

However, no matter compliments or criticism these characters were given, what was clearly presented to us through those descriptions was the fact that females’ position had already been promoted in Shakespeare’s time. As an excellent playwright who knew human being well, Shakespeare not only enriched Western literature with his great works, but also created new images for females after they had been treated unfairly from the very beginning of history. As for males, although there were valiant characters like Henry V, Shakespeare still did not hesitate to mock at them when his descriptions came to their greed and stupidity which was part of human nature. When we read Shakespeare’s works, it seemed that we were seeing through all human history to find out what human beings really were.

Tang XianZu was an author who lived in the age when Chinese culture went closing and society atmosphere became depressing while the western culture just began to flourish. Unlike Shakespeare, his works were typical Chinese style. In his four famous “dreams”, two of them [The HanDan Dream and The NanKe Dream] were stories which meant to tell people that they should forget everything in their temporal life and should live a simple and cloistered life. Obviously in the author’s view everything in one’s life was just as illusory as a dream.

The Peony Pavilion was his magnum opus. It was written during his earlier life. After it was put on the stage, numberless women and young girls went crazy for it. What described in the play was considered as the symbol of human’s pursuit for freedom. Different from Shakespeare who wrote about all aspects of the society and human nature, Tang’s work put his points on the feelings human beings had and the power which could be inspired by those feelings.

The spirits of humanism, the description of patriarchy and the role played by female characters in both master works had already been totally researched by researchers. This paper would focus on the descriptions of marriages in the two great works Romeo and Juliet and The Peony Pavilion. As the only one ritual that would be held in every corner of the world regardless of the differences of race, country, location, tradition and time, marriage is also the one ritual through which we could clearly depict the cultural background in which the wedding is held. The self-decided marriage of Juliet which was never known by their parents until their death and the secret marriage between Liu MengMei and Du LiNiang which was denied by Du’s father, they both reflected the circumstances of their society and the values that people in their age held.

2. Two Female Protagonists’ Attitudes Toward Marriage

As one of the 130 or so females appeared in Shakespeare’s works, Juliet might not the most charming one. But she was definitely the most famous one among young people all around the world. Her piteous love story with Rome had always been capable of arousing sympathy among young people and of touching the deepest feelings of everyone’s heart. How innocent and courageous she was when she said these words after he had fallen in love with Romeo: “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet” (Shakespeare 30).

Instead of drawing back when she learnt the truth that Romeo was indeed one of her family rancor, Juliet chose to spoke out her love and to find a way to solve it. In fact, it was on the night they just met that they decided to get married. She said: “Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, one that I’ll procure to come to thee, Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite, And all my fortunes at Thy foot I’ll lay, And follow thee my lord throughout the world.” The next day, she was unable to hold back herself to the news of Romeo’s. She could not wait to send her nurse for Romeo’s news and waited for it anxiously. After she heard that Romeo had already gotten everything ready, she ran to the church with no hesitation. They finally got married under the witness of Friar Lawrence with no one else knowing it.

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